Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Don't Worry, Be Happy Album Cover

I’m a worrier by nature; always have been, always will be. So when I sang along to Bobby McFerrin’s original version of this song growing up, I’m pretty sure I was trying to convince myself to heed his advice.

I love everything about this song: the lyrics, the laid-back stye, the harmonies, and especially the way it makes me feel when I listen and sing along. Turns out it’s a crowd pleaser in just about every setting I’ve used it, including my early childhood classes, performances, and music therapy sessions.

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Counting Songs for Every Season

Counting Snowflakes

If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, then you know I’m a sucker for a good counting song. But little did I know when I wrote “Little Red Apples” back in August for our early childhood class, it would lead to an entire songbook full of them.

That song was such a hit with our young students AND music therapy clients that we continued writing new counting songs like it every few weeks. We also created visuals for each one, and now have a nature-based counting collection to match every season.

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We’re Going On a Bear Hunt

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

This book and I go wayyyyy back. Like, back to my internship days. So it’s pretty funny that my toddler son is currently singing “the bear hunt song” on repeat these days. He heard it for the first time when it was the featured singable story in my early childhood music class, and now it’s a staple in our daily rotation.

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Until Next Time

Until Next Time Album Cover

Once upon a time, I had a rotation of 2 or 3 hello and goodbye songs that I used across the board. But now that Katey and I write a new class curriculum every few weeks, I have amassed quite a collection of greeting songs.

This is one of the simpler goodbye tunes I’ve written. In fact, I realized this morning that I didn’t even have it written out (it only took a few minutes to create a quick lead sheet since the chords are nice and easy), nor do I have an instrumental track since I just used bare-bones ukulele accompaniment.

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